About
Diamonds is a tribute to an original Breakout-style game created by Oliver Dreer and released by Varcon Systems in 1992. Diamonds is a Breakout-style game where the ball bounces automatically and the player only steers it left and right, clearing diamond blocks — which first require clearing color-matched blocks and, in some cases, lock/key blocks — to complete each level. It first appeared publicly on SourceForge in 2008 and moved to GitHub in 2012, built on SDL and licensed under GPLv3.
Getting started
Steer the bouncing ball with the left and right arrow keys; F2 starts a new game, P pauses, R restarts the current level, and Q quits. Destroying a color block requires the ball to match its color, which is changed by hitting paintbrush blocks — light blue blocks must be cleared first since there's no light blue paintbrush. Lock blocks need the ball to be orange (after collecting a key) to break, and reverse blocks temporarily swap the left/right controls. An additional 'More Diamonds' level set is included.
History
The game's first public release (v0.4) was on SourceForge in May 2008; the project moved to its current GitHub repository in March 2012.